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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- New York Times
September 29, 2003
White House Says Top Aide
Was Not Behind C.I.A. LeakBy DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - The White House said today that it was ``ridiculous'' for anyone to suggest that President Bush's top political adviser had leaked secret information in an effort to discredit an outspoken critic of Mr. Bush's policy on Iraq.
But the White House denial that Mr. Bush's political aide, Karl Rove, was behind the leak failed to satisfy Democrats, several of whom demanded investigations of one kind or another.
The controversy, which has been simmering for two months and boiled over during the weekend, concerns the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former United States diplomat, and his wife, Valerie Plame. The syndicated columnist Robert Novak, citing ``two senior administration officials,'' wrote in July that Ms. Plame was an undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency specializing in weapons of mass destruction.
On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that Bush administration officials had contacted a half-dozen Washington reporters in an effort to publicly disclose Ms. Plame's identity, apparently in retaliation for Mr. Wilson's public assertions that President Bush had exaggerated the threat of any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to help justify the war to topple Saddam Hussein.
The Post also reported that the C.I.A.'s office of general counsel had written to the Department of Justice in late July to complain of the disclosure and to ask for an investigation into whether administration officials had indeed been involved in what could be a violation of federal law.
Asked at a midday news briefing if Mr. Rove was behind the leak, the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said today that he had spoken to Mr. Rove and had been assured that it was ``simply not true'' that Mr. Rove had had anything to do with the leak.
``The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved,'' Mr. McClellan said. Pressed on just how the president knew that, Mr. McClellan said: ``Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. I saw some comments this morning from the person who made that suggestion backing away from that. And I said it is simply not true.''
Mr. McClellan also pledged that the White House would cooperate with the Justice Department in any investigation of the leak.
Although the Justice Department was said to be considering at least a preliminary inquiry, several Democrats urged that the matter be entrusted to an independent inquiry outside the Justice Department, which has drawn criticism of partisanship from Democratic circles.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who called for the F.B.I. to investigate the disclosure after it first surfaced in July, said today that an independent counsel should be appointed. And some of the 10 Democrats seeking to challenge President Bush in 2004 said the disclosure of an ambassador's wife as a C.I.A. officer demonstrated that the Bush administration was intertwining politics and national security and could not be trusted to investigate itself.
``This administration has played politics with national security for a long time, but this is going too far,'' one of those Democratic hopefuls, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, told Reuters, suggesting an independent commission look into the accusations. ``I don't think, in this administration, the Department of Justice will have the credibility it needs to reassure American allies abroad, and people around the world, about this matter.''
The general suggested former Senator Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat, or John Shalikashvili, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to lead an independent inquiry.
Another candidate, former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, said that keeping Mr. Ashcroft out of an investigation would help ensure a thorough inquiry free of political pressure, and he suggested that the review be carried out by the Justice Department's inspector general, an independent post.
``We need to determine the facts in the highly sensitive matter free from any political taint,'' Mr. Dean told Reuters.
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